In the Days Still Left
by QueenMegaera
Summary: "Rumours" part V. No young man, no matter how great, can know his destiny. He cannot glimpse his part in the great story that is about to unfold. Like everyone, he must live and learn. And so it will be for the young warrior arriving at the gates of Camelot - and for the one biding his time outside her borders. (Est. A/M and G/L. Non-graphic slash. Some violence. Plot-based.)


**A/N: Merry Christmas, Merlin fans(as Bradley would say)! I come bearing gifts.**

_The fic you're looking at is the sixth and latest instalment of the Rumours-verse. The previous stories in this universe are, in order of internal chronology: __**1)**__ What's Left Unsaid Will Break Your Heart ; __**2)**__ Returning to Haunt Us; __**3)**__ All the King's Horses and All the King's Men (the main story);__** 4)**__ Winter Solstice; and __**5)**__ These Whispers Will Soon Be Legends. You don't have to have read all of them to understand this one (although I recommend that, of course), but if you haven't read _**All the King's Horses**_ things will get confusing._

_If you haven't followed one of my multi-chapter stories before, here's how it works: This story will be long. This story will take time. This story _will_ eventually be completed. Unless I die, or hit my head and lose my memory, or get some other form of brain damage. All of which I sincerely hope will not happen.*Knocks on wood.*_

**"Warnings": **_Same pairings as the previous stories in the series.__Slash, obviously. Some fluff. Some angst. Some dirty jokes. Canon-levels of battle and violence. Rated T for now. If I get inspired (or warned) I might raise it to M._

**Disclaimer: **_not mine, obviously – that's why it's called _fan_fiction, after all._

_Are you ready? Good. Here we go:_

IYîYîYîYI

**RUMOURS:  
IN THE DAYS STILL LEFT**

IYîYîYîYI

"'_Forgive', sounds good  
'Forget', I'm not sure I could  
They say time heals everything  
But I'm still waiting"_

- Dixie Chicks, _Not Ready to Make Nice_

IYîYîYîYI

**Prologue**

**Meetings in the Dark**

Mordred lit the fire, rubbed his hands together to warm them faster, and looked at the woman opposite him. She was wrapped in his cloak now – a ragged brown thing – and a blanket over that, but her pale knees and her muddied feet were visible, betraying how naked she had been when she had emerged from the dirt and soil underneath them. Dirty or not, though, she wore the rags like a royal mantle. Mordred could feel her power coming at him in waves that crashed against his skin and sent shivers down his spine.

"So tell me," she said. Even in the twilight, her eyes shone as blue as if they had been sapphires lit from within, and her lips were an almost lurid red. Even after Morgana, even after Morgause, even after years of travelling across the kingdoms, she was undoubtedly the most beautiful woman Mordred had ever seen, and the most terrifying. She made him feel as if fire and ice were fighting a war over his body.

"What do you want to know?" he asked.

She shrugged and smiled.

"What you're thinking, why I'm here, if you knew what you were doing when you summoned me – many things. But I think we'll start with Merlin."

IYîYîYîYI

Merlin had lost Arthur and the hunting team hours ago, and the sun was setting when he came to a small cottage. The building was crammed in under a cliff and the roots of a giant pine tree growing on the same mountainside hung out over it, making it look more like the den of some animal than a real house, but a light in the single window betrayed a human inhabitant. A strangely familiar tingle travelled down Merlin's spine. He got off the horse and tied it to a nearby tree before he approached the door carefully. He knocked. No one answered, so he tried the handle. It was open.

When he entered he felt a whole slew of protective spells hit him in the face, like old cobwebs woven across the doorway. They put a metallic taste in his mouth. He knew that taste.

There was only one room, with a table and a chair in one end, and stove in the other. Near the warmth of the stove was, for lack of better words, a bed. There was also another chair, turned towards the open hatch and the fire inside. A woman sat on the chair, facing away from Merlin. Black hair with a few grey streaks fell in tangled tresses down her back.

"You're late, Emrys," she said.

"You've never called me that," he replied, walking around to face her.

She didn't look up at him, just continued to stare at the fire, but a small smile spread across her face.

"I know better now," she said.

Something rustled and Merlin looked up to see an owl peering down at him from the rafters. Merlin stared back, and the owl turned its back to him in an almost patronizing manner. Merlin studied the rest of the room closely, examining it for glamours or doors or places to hide.

"You're looking for Mordred," Morgana said, and Merlin turned back to her. She still wasn't looking at him. "He hasn't been here for a long time," she continued. "He's on his way to the end. It's a long way yet."

"A long way to what?" Merlin asked.

"The battle, where he will win and lose his war with the same strike."

"What war? Who is he fighting?"

"Emrys."

Merlin didn't know what to say to that. Morgana's empty eyes were chilling. He wondered if she had gone completely mad. Perhaps she didn't even really believe he was there. Perhaps she thought he was just a figment of her imagination.

"How did you know I'd come?" he asked. "Was it you who made the others disappear? Where are they? Where did they go?"

"Nowhere," she replied, appearing unmoved by the accusations. "There will be a Mallac-beast hiding in one of the caves. Its magic will make people blind to each other. Arthur finds it and kills it with Excalibur and you are all able to see each other again. But first you had to come and talk to me. That's the way it happened."

It took Merlin a moment to figure out all the different tenses in her speech, and another to realise the cause of them.

IYîYîYîYI

Mordred started from beginning.

"When I was a little boy," he told his audience of one, "the people of my tribe would tell stories about a wizard called Emrys. The stories had been passed down for generations, from a time long before Uther Pendragon's purge began. The legend spoke of a wizard more powerful than any who had come before him, and any who would follow. A wizard who would be born in the darkest of times, to bring about light. Who would usher in a new age of peace and freedom for all who use magic.

When it was my turn to hear these tales, Uther had been hunting my people down like game in the woods for two whole decades, slaughtering us like animals. Once there were over fifty druid tribes in Albion. When I was born, there were five. When Uther and his knights didn't do the butchering themselves, there was always some ally or another who hoped to endear himself to the King of Camelot by killing his so-called enemies. Peaceful men and women, little children, old people – they were all killed. Some of them were raped, or tortured, or mutilated. All of them were left to rot in the woods, or hung up as an example for all to see while the birds feasted on their corpses.

But my people still had hope, because we knew that Emrys had been born, that he was nearby, and that all these horrors would soon end.

I wanted it so badly. I dreamed every day and every night of how we would be saved. How Emrys would end the reign of the Pendragons and stop the persecution of my people. I had an older brother, once. He died when I was still a child, but while he lived, if I was too afraid to sleep, he would whisper to me and tell me that one day soon Emrys would come. He would ride into our camp with Uther's head in his hands, and lead us into a new Camelot where people would bow to us in the streets. The sun would be shining, and the blood of those who had spilt our blood would still be glistening on the cobbled stones. I didn't like it when he talked of blood, but I still dreamt of that day. A day when the druids would be safe again, respected again. I dreamt that the old ways that I had never got to experience would be restored. I dreamt that my kin and I would never have to run again, would never have to be afraid again. Emrys would save us. Emrys would lead us, and I was going to follow him, to my grave if I had to."

IYîYîYîYI

"You still get visions," Merlin said.

Morgana sighed.

"Many more, since Morgause died. I only have to close my eyes now. More often ... I'm more ... I spend more time there than here."

As she searched for the words, her eyes flickered and she blinked. It was almost as if she was waking up.

"And you saw that I'd come here?" Merlin asked.

"Yes", she said. "But you're late."

There was a hint of that old superiority in her voice, and Merlin felt himself smile.

"I'm sorry, my lady."

"Never mind. You're here now. You're here so that I can tell you."

"Tell me what?"

She turned her head and looked straight at him with wide eyes.

"About Arthur's death."

Merlin rose in a flash. His mind reached out for every morsel of magic in the room until the air itself trembled.

IYîYîYîYI

"Our tribe travelled closer to Camelot than we had been in years, because we knew that was where Emrys would be. One day, when my teacher and I went in to the market for supplies, we were betrayed by our contact there. I was wounded, and my teacher was captured when he tried to save me. Uther sentenced him to death, later that day. But I cried for help – and he found me. Emrys found me. I remember that I thought he looked just like any other young man, until you saw his eyes. I think the blind people of Camelot couldn't see it, but I could: I saw the power that lurked inside him. I knew instantly that it was him.

He took me to Morgana's chambers to hide me, but then... He seemed to change his mind. Morgana took care of me, cared _for_ me. Even Arthur Pendragon tried to help me – I suppose he had scruples about killing children once he'd looked them in the eye. But Emrys... Emrys looked at me as if he regretted saving me in the first place.

Arthur tried to help me escape Camelot. Emrys was supposed to meet us, but he didn't come when he was meant to. He left us in a trap. I was a terrified little boy, calling out for him, and I knew he could hear me, but he didn't answer. He was going to leave me to be slaughtered. I knew he was. I could feel it. I could feel him. He turned up at the very last second, but it wasn't for me. He turned up because he couldn't show Arthur Pendragon that he was ruthless enough to have a child's life on his conscience. It was Morgana, and only Morgana, who truly saved me, that time."

IYîYîYîYI

"You said he would be alright!" Merlin shouted. "If you've hurt him ..."

The floor shook, and Morgana held out a hand signalling for him to stop.

"No! Not ... not _now_!" She seemed to struggle to find the words. "Then. Later. When the battle is over and his eyes close. When the sky is turning dark and your hair is turning white and the ground is turning red with blood ..." She trailed off, squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. "But he can't. He can't die, Merlin. The King of Albion must not die. So you bring him to Avalon. You didn't know how to open the gate, but you went anyway. You went. You go. You will go."

"Avalon?"

"The land of the fairies, Merlin. The land of eternal youth."

"I know what Avalon is," Merlin said.

His knees began to feel weak.

"He stays alive there," Morgana continued. "He will sleep. Until Albion needs him again."

Merlin sat down, gingerly, on the pile of fabrics and stuffed things that looked to be a bed. Yes. He remembered Avalon.

"And how will he return?" he asked.

Morgana shook her head in silence.

"What?"

"I don't know," she said. I haven't seen it."

IYîYîYîYI

"The second time I met Emrys – _Merlin_ – he lead the knights of Camelot to my tribe's camp.

It was a slaughter. I heard Arthur Pendragon call out to his knights to take no prisoners. There were women in that camp, and children! Moments before they came, we had been playing. The sound of laughter was still ringing in my ears. And then there was the sound of screaming, of crying, of swords cutting through flesh. Do you know what a sickening sound a sword makes when it cuts through the belly of a child? There's only one sound that is worse, and that's the silence afterwards.

I saw our leader, a peaceful man, shot to death in front of me. I ran for my life. I got lost in the forest, for days, and for nights. I barely dared to close my eyes in the cold and the dark. Time after time I thought I heard the soldiers, Pendragon's soldiers, coming to gut me, coming to slice me to pieces with their swords.

In the end a man called Alvar found me. He had magic, too. He led a group of renegades in resistance against Uther and his atrocious practices. I told Alvar of Morgana, and he smuggled me into Camelot to see her and ask for her help. By then I no longer believed it was Emrys who would be our rescue.

But I still hadn't thought it would happen all over again: the camp in the woods, the attacking soldiers, the sound of flesh being separated from flesh. And _Emrys._ Emrys,who lead them there, again, like a faithful _dog. _

I had to run for my life, again. I lost the people closest to me, _again_. Because once more the man who was supposed to be our saviour turned out to be nothing more than a selfish coward, who was too fond of licking the Pendragons' boots back in the warm halls of Camelot to stand up for his own kind. After all that waiting, all those nights spent dreaming of a saviour, we were on our own. We always had been.

The last tribe I lived with was slaughtered at the edge of the Darkling Woods. There was a girl there, she ... I guess she was my first love. She was a few years older than me, strong, and so proud. She heard the mob come before I did, and she tricked me into a hollow tree and locked me inside. I stood there powerless, robbed of my magic, and saw through a crack in the wood as another tribe was killed. A little boy was run through by a pitch fork right in front of me, just a couple of feet away. And Kara ... I mean, the girl. She ..." Mordred paused, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He spoke quickly so his voice wouldn't crack. "They raped her. I saw it. Two of them, forcing themselves on her, laughing. I thought they were going to kill her when they were through, but then she got away somehow, and I saw her run. I called out for her, but her spell stopped me from being heard, so I banged my fists against the wood until they bled and then ... I think I fainted. When I woke up, the spell had weakened, and I had enough of my own magic back to break it completely. But I still couldn't leave. I couldn't go outside and walk over all those bodies. I just couldn't. I hid in that tree for days, I fed myself by summoning what I could see through the holes in the tree, and when the villagers came back, I made the bodies of the dead rise up and take their vengeance. I stayed there until the knights of Camelot came. _He_ came, too. I saw him and it shook me out of my sleep, and I ran, the same way Kara had run. But I never found her again.

I found Morgana instead, and she and her sister took me in. Morgana told me of the time when she still lived in Camelot: how she lived in fear of both her own powers and of being discovered, and how it ate her up from the inside. All that time, Emrys was right there, pretending to be one of _them. _He could have helped her. He could have stood by her side, fought with her when she was brave enough to fight. He could have been who the prophecies said he would be. Instead he poisoned her, and schemed against her, and nearly killed her sister."

IYîYîYîYI

"But you know that he will come back?" Merlin asked. His voice was barely a whisper. "Eventually?"

"I know that's why you take him to Avalon," she replied.

Silence fell between them. Morgana was looking at him now, and she seemed more _there_ than she had been during the entire conversation.

"I think ..." she began, but her voice cracked. She reached for the ladle hanging on a bucket of water, and it came floating towards her. She drank. "I think you won't rest until you find a way," she said.

"When?" Merlin managed to say. "How long until this happens?"

Morgana seemed to think about this.

"When is now?" she asked.

"Sorry?"

"Has the boy come yet? Have they returned? Has the old man screamed at your walls?"

Merlin frowned.

"I ... don't think so? How do I know? I have no idea what you're referring to."

"Then, years, at least," she said. She studied him for a moment, and raised her hand from her lap to reach for him.

"Could you ... can I touch you?" she asked. "Just so I can know that I'm really here?"

Merlin swallowed.

Without a word, he stood up and went over to her. Carefully, he took her hand in both of his and knelt by her side.

"You're here. I'm here. We are talking, now."

There was a lump in his throat that had turned up without warning. He hadn't seen Morgana in such a long time. There were lines in her face and grey streaks in her hair, even though she wasn't much older than he was, and her dress was in rags, but she was still beautiful. Still regal. He had thought he'd have a hard time not killing her, if they met again. He had been wrong.

There were tears on her cheeks, and Merlin reached out to wipe them away.

"Pity Emrys," she whispered, "the most unfortunate of men." She spoke as if she was reciting something she had heard a long time ago – or perhaps a long time from now. "He holds the universe in his hand and yet must suffer its laws. He can change the course of the stars and the duration of his life, but he can't stop what must happen." She stroked his hair. "But you don't have to remember what I've told you. You only needed to know what to do when the time comes."

And she leant down and kissed his temple.

IYîYîYîYI

"In the end," Mordred said, "Emrys _did _kill Morgause. And he took Mim, and ... I don't know what he did to Morgana, but whatever it was, it made her lose her mind. What I_ do_ know, is that he took my family away from me and made me a refugee for a fourth time. All those childhood dreams I had of him coming to my rescue, setting everything right, making me and mine safe – it was all a joke. A cruel, sadistic joke. The kind of joke a condescending hangman would tell a man about to die. It didn't even matter that magic was made legal again. Nothing changed. It was too late. The Old Religion remains dead, and I, as you can see, remain a fugitive, hunted like prey by Pendragon and his knights.

Every horror I've ever been subjected to, every grief I've suffered through, it's all been because of him. My people never recovered. The druids are gone, every last tribe. Some, like Kara, and like me, might have escaped and wandered away on their own, but there are no more camps, no more teachers, no more stories. Our saviour saved no one but himself – himself and his precious king.

So I have vowed to destroy him. When Morgana said she would no longer help me, I swore to find someone who would. I've walked through fire and ice to get the power and knowledge I needed to conjure up a weapon that could defeat Emrys.

My spell conjured you."

His listener smiled at him, still, as if she hadn't moved a muscle all the time he'd been talking. Mordred wasn't even sure she had blinked.

"Your people can't have been very good at interpreting the prophecies," she said. "Merlin was always meant to make Arthur the King of Albion. _That_ was his destiny."

"And the prophecies that talked about a new golden age for our kind? Of a world where magic was set free again? Where they all misinterpreted? And if they were, where they misinterpreted by us, or by _him_?"

She didn't reply. Instead she leaned forward, her smile still in place, and stroked his cheek. Her touch was as soft as the breeze that made the trees whisper above them, but her gaze was as intense as a thunderstorm. Mordred swallowed and tried to stay calm, tried not to look down at her body, tried to ignore her beauty and what it did to him.

"All this trouble to defeat little Merlin?" she nearly purred.

"He is extremely powerful," Mordred protested. He felt a blush creep up his cheeks. "As you very well know."

She shrugged.

"He's still a _man_." Her index finger came to rest on his lips, and Mordred had to concentrate on breathing evenly. "And all men have their weaknesses."

She cocked her head to the side and studied him. Mordred got the distinct impression that she was trying to decide whether or not _he_ was a man.

"You know," she finally said, "there are prophecies about _you_, too. About how you will take away all that he cares about, just the way he did to you. Would you like to hear them?"

Her leer made the simple offer sound outrageously indecent. Mordred's mouth had run so dry that he couldn't speak – only nod.

IYîYîYîYI

"Merlin!" Morgana called behind him when he already had his hand on the door. He turned around to look at her.

"Will you come back?" she asked.

"Can't you tell?"

"No," she admitted, and her tone seemed strained. "Not everything. Not whether people will return."

He wondered at her choice of words. Who were "people"? Was she hinting something that he would understand later?

"I don't know," he said, because he couldn't make up his mind now, not when she was looking at him like that.

"Please do. And Merlin ..." she paused, and smiled wryly, and for a split second Merlin saw the Morgana who had swept through the castle corridors like a goddess, matched her knife sharp wit against Arthur's, and stolen the hearts and eyes of all the men in Camelot – even his, for a while. She said:

"Don't trust a witch."


End file.
